All This Time

"I will come and proclaim Your mighty acts,

O Sovereign Lord,

I will proclaim your righteousness,

Yours alone.

Since my youth, O God, you have taught me,

and to this day I declare Your marvelous deeds.

Psalm 71:16-17

Is it really possible that tomorrow I will get on the plane to come back to Canada?

This warp that separates my two worlds by twelve hours also plays with my sense of time passing, I think.  This hurling forwards into tomorrow adds to any sense of not knowing what day it is, how long it's been.  Because really, it seems to me that I just got here, AND that I've been here much longer.  Like, maybe always.  Happens a lot here.  I relax into the rhythms of life, get it right about drinking enough water, let myself have the afternoons off, and press into the days that are a flurry of the unexpected.  And it feels like I've been doing this all my life.

This distortion of time has been exaggerated these specific four weeks, however.  Big things happening at home make for a weirdness in being away that's hard to describe.  And as such, I've barely written.  Barely blogged.  Which isn't great when there are so many faithful friends who are praying with me and supporting the work here, and you all really ought to know what's going on, just generally, in a day to day, kind of way.

But my heart is heavy with the passing of a dear friend, Jen, who also loved this place and these children.  And when I left, even though things didn't look great, we both expected that I would see her again this side of glory.  Now instead, I arrive home to conduct the celebration of life service of someone I love very much.  And this following a six month absence from the community of faith I love so dearly.  And we're all grieving, and I'm back to grieve together.  And I'm so glad for that.

But at the same time it feels distorted and strained.  It feels so stretched to have been away.

Happily, my grandson Jayden's six day-stay in the hospital did finally come to an end.  But in the real-time of it, over texting and emails with his mother, my daughter....It just was so not okay with my Gramma heart not to be there.  Again, stretched out too tight, too far.

And now packing, knowing that I will again be hurling myself through time, backwards now,  And it will only exchange one heart-stretching for another.  Because really, it seems to me that I just got here.  And there's so much more to do.  Especially now that our New Family Foundation has been officially accepted by the Thai government, and we are a real live entity.  Especially now, on the cusp of this vision that Pastors Suradet and Yupa have held up to God for more than seven years, asking me along, and asking for the widened capacity of love and ministry this brings.

And we have been so busy on those days of unexpected flurry!  District offices, and tax departments and banks and signs being made and stamps being inked.  Budgets to clarify and job descriptions to write and lists to make of what comes first and what comes next and what have we actually gotten ourselves into?

And I have dug deep into what it means to do this cross-culturally this time out.  My studies this semester have been about this very thing.  About how we partner with each other, leveraging the differences in how we think, behave, speak and live for the increased effectiveness of sharing the story and the love of the Jesus we say we follow.  Deep reading.  Oh so much reading.  And then, while here, putting lesson plans into actions, preaching sermons, one in Thai, and writing, writing, writing the reports and the research paper.  And then, just this morning, getting it all sent in, a little ahead of time.

So this stretching, this pulling has been awful and splendid at the same time.

I don't understand why my friend had to get cancer in the first place, let alone why her time to leave us had to happen when I was away.  I don't pretend to have any great, philosophical, or even theological answer to put it all away in a tidy box.  This was messy.  This trip, this being here when so much was going on at home, and so much was going on here, it was just messy.  And there were times when the stress plus the heat sent me to my bed for the better part of the afternoon, just coping.

But.



When it all gets that much out of my grasp, it's just another way of remembering again and again that we're co-writers of our lives, not the one and only authors.  Those of us who have invited God to lead and direct, we surrender, don't we?  Aren't we supposed to be letting Him be God?

And the crazy thing about it is, that He actually gets us involved in it.  We're not hapless victims of His 'perfect plan and purpose'.  As we cooperate, we get to help write the story.

I stop here every time I think of this.

We get to co-write our story with God.

At least that's how it seems to me.  Every time we say yes.  Every time we watch Him do something different than we expected and believe that He knows what He's doing, He knows how to be God.  Every time we're on the wrong side of the planet and our humanity gets in the way of us being everything and everywhere we want to be.  Every time we just say, okay, do Your thing.  I'm with You, even in this.  I praise You even in this....Every time that's another chapter of a story that's worth living.

So I put this month into the bigger strand of months that make up the years of my life, and it doesn't have to make sense all by itself.  I know this.  I know because an eleven year old girl once said yes to God if He wanted to take her to Asia.

And in that moment it didn't make any sense at all.

But it does now.

So, this month....I'll let it take its time to explain itself to me.  But even if it doesn't.  Even if I never know all the reasons for all the things, for being far away and right here at the same time, it's okay.  Because God knows.  He does.  And all my life, all my life, He has been faithful to me.